Poems

maydayish

…


morris men bailing out
      parachutes & landing on
yesteryear’s merriments
      enter the fayre
as their sunk plane explodes
      with an orange plop
into the west’s horizon
      so the foxgloves are off
let the bells knell then
      let the barely legal
maidens weave
      ribbons ’round a randy tree
let the ale keep it real
      if the piss’eads insist
albion, the coffin dodger
      is seventeen again
so this green & pheasant gland
      de vere’s sceptred isle
mister blake’s jerusalem
      is wistful like wisteria
while clematis climbs
      like the ghostly smoke from
great auntie beltane’s
      bonfire – the bardish
burks compose their verse
      on greasy white chip paper
necking lukewarm cans of
      dandelion & burdock
let anew resume
      & a cuckoo calm us all

…

the plagiarists defence

…

scribbled sequentially
in a rusty cable car

halfway in between
the valley & the mountain

apart from verse six
which was borrowed from a dream

that your country cousin had
about your uncle’s chin

& verses one to five
which a gibbon improvised

on a dirty qwerty keyboard
from the centuries turn

then verse seven was flinched
verbatim from the back

of a pack of pork scratchings
in nineteen ninety two

then the rest just appeared
on the back doorstep

one frostless morrow
with love from trad-anon

so none at all hails
from my hinterland’s shores

but the english pigeons flinched
the phoenician alphabet

…

easter bonnet

…

glue a sinking boater
with droopy dead daffodils
& tulips as well

then hyacinth too
so red, green & blue
with yellowing edges

wrapped in blooming blackthorn
a crown from those hedgerows
fit for an archetype

goosegrass from the garden
( which grows sooner each year )
a smear of rabbit shit

a spring lamb’s tail
& their afterbirth as well
a handful of raincloud

a whiff of fallow musk
a purring willow’s catkin
& a shiny splodge of frogspawn

plus a creme egg wedged
in a rubber chicken’s arse
stuck atop the lot

…

this isn’t

…

a letter from
the attic of
your long, lost uncle

a song about
your country cousin’s
chicken casserole

another of those
alt-accounts
( beware the many bots )

the reason why
it’s blue above
& no, not grey today

a diatribe
uncontacted
& ranting in the wilds

dear reader of
each clattering
this isn’t haiku or

an ode to
a pygmy shrew
nor a carrion crow

oh,

even though
it may seem so
sometimes the cuckoo lies

…